


Red Like Your Accents

by WrenchWeilder



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Because apparently that isn't a thing in the tf fandom and I wanted some, The weird title will make more sense if this becomes a series, string of fate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22397962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrenchWeilder/pseuds/WrenchWeilder
Summary: Starscream doesn’t want fate telling him who to love.  He falls in love anyways.
Relationships: Skyfire/Starscream, background trinefire
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	Red Like Your Accents

Starscream could rant about the “Strings of Fate” for joors. Not because he was jealous of Thundercracker’s many strings, all colored complimenting shades of blue. Or of Skywarp’s veritable _rainbow_ that covered both hands. No, he was glad that he only had two beyond his trine, and that neither had colored up. Really he was. The whole ‘fated destiny till death do you part’ scrap was nonsense. He didn’t need colorful psychic strings to tell him who would be a part of his life for the rest of it. He made a point of showing mecha how much he didn’t covet the light blue strings that signified trine. 

Never too much though. After all, trines were sparked, lived, mated, and died together. He didn’t want to look like he was compensating or anything.

Skywarp and Thundercracker each had one that hadn’t colored yet, and despite them not being braided the way connections to other trines were, Skywarp was insufferable the way he mooned over the idea of the uncolored strings being red. ‘There are other solo aerial types.’ He’d petulantly insist. Thundercracker was almost worse when he joked that it would certainly stand out against all his blue and did nothing to refute Skywarp!

The worst part about the strings were how unscientific they were. Red was romantic, sky blue was trine, but beyond that it was simply a largely accepted fact that personality and the type of relationship sorta kinda effected what the color was.

Then there was the fact that mecha could only see their own. Who’s to say this isn’t just some mass code glitch that medics have been encouraging instead of eliminating over the centuries, to the point where it was standard and ingrained? Well, trine could sort of see each others. Starscream could see the many strings leading away from Skywarp or Thundercrackers servos, but they vanished from sight within a few feet. Which still didn’t rule out his glitch theory.

In short, Starscream had long since decided not to let intangible strings get in the way him living the life he wanted. And when it came time to leave his trine for an education at the Iacon Science Academy he didn’t hesitate. At all. Really. 

_Skywarp hugged him tightly. “I’ll miss you too.” He’d said._

__

Starscream told himself he wasn’t disappointed when Skywarp barely resisted being pushed away.

__

_“If you miss us too much,” Thundercracker interjected, wiggling his index servo in a way that highlighted the light blue triangle between them. “you can always look down at your hand and know we’re there.”_

Starscream had taken off in a huff at that. It took him most of the flight to Iacon to convince himself the warmth he was feeling was the heat of embarrassment. 

What he wasn’t afraid to admit, was how little he was looking forwards to living with ground pounders. He’d heard that the backwards dirt lickers _liked_ being underground. He’d even heard they considered _one_ trine being in a relationship with another _single_ trine to be polygamy. And that was just the tip of the iceberg! Thundercracker had warned him to be mindful of cultural differences like that, but seriously, what the frag? 

He’d hoped he’d have a room to himself due to no one wanting to room with a seeker, and was surprised to find that he wasn’t the only aerial attending. It was far less surprising to learn they’d been stuck together. Joy. Better than a grounder at least.

Starscream could practically feel his wings perk up as he realized his room was on one of the upper floors, and was one of the larger ones. Opening the door he learned why as he was treated to a view of a shuttle frame, his back to Starscream as he hunched over a too small desk. Starscream stood there for a moment, half wondering how someone as stupid as a shuttle had gotten in, and half admiring the mech’s gorgeous wingspan.

When he’d had his fill of looking he stepped in. Only to freeze as he noticed the string on his right pinky had colored. And it was fraggin’ _red_. The soft scratch of stylus on datapad slowly stopped. Likely as the other mech noticed the coloration on his own servo. The mech turned to regard him with a curious look in his optics.

Flustered, Starscream shouted “Frag you!”

The mech merely arched a brow. “Maybe eventually, but I’d rather take it slow. Regardless of what outside factors may indicate.” With his last statement the mech raised his own left ring servo, causing the string to sway between them.

With a screech of defiance Starscream left the room. 

Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope, N, O, NO. He was going to demand a new room. A new roommate. He’d live with a groundpounder. No stupid string was going to dictate his relationship with anyone else. Frag. That.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Starsceam hadn’t gotten a new room. Or a new roommate. But the shuttle, Skyfire, had turned out to be ok. And a lot smarter than Starscream had initially assumed. 

They both agreed they were just friends. There may be an intangible red string connecting them, but that didn’t change anything. Who said red always had to be romantic anyways?

Starscream actually often found himself admiring it, and the contrast it had with his trine strings.

What he did not admire, was coming back from class one orn to see his trine waiting for him in his room.

“The frag are you idiots doing here?!” He hissed. He’d been so careful to hide the red string during vidcalls. If they saw it they’d ruin everything! He carefully put some furniture between them to hide the string.

“Visiting you. Duh.”

“I don’t need you glitches visiting me. Aren’t the vid calls enough?”

The string was pointing almost straight down, meaning Skyfire was in the lobby. This was bad.

“Did one of your strings color?” Scrap. Thundercracker must have seen him looking down at his hand. 

“None of your fragging business!!”

“Oh my Primus it did!” Skywarp teleported beside him, grabbing his wrists and lifting them up before he could properly react. Starscream snatched his hands back, but it was too late. 

“It’s red.” Said blue fragging captain slagging obvious. 

“I KNEW IT!” Crowed Skywarp. “And you weren’t going to introduce us?!”

“Of course not!” Snapped Starscream. He watched as the string quickly went from pointing down to horizontal. He was running out of time. “But since you know anyways I suppose we can talk this over energon and I can invite him out to meet you. I doubt he’ll want to though. 

Skywarp, these are the coordinates to the nearest bar, warp us there.”

Thundercracker’s optics flashed in realization. “He’s your roommate.” The both of them looked to Skyfire’s side of the room with new interest.

Frag him. Why was he always this observant when Starscream didn’t want him to be? Could this get any worse?

And then Skywarp started rifling through Skyfire’s things just before said mech opened the door. 

It’s the small things in life that truly make it miserable.

It was frankly embarrassing the way Thundercracker and Skywarp drank in the sight of Skyfire. 

Skyfire however, was too busy slowly tracing two new strings that had undoubtedly just colored with his optics. His gaze finally ended on his left hand and stayed there.

“You must be Starscream’s trine.”

Starscream couldn’t see it, but he’d known since it turned red that Skyfire probably saw a braided trio tied around his servo that split to connect him to each member of the trine. This was a very rare instance where he hated being right.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

So they hadn’t ruined everything. A very rare instance where Starscream was glad to be wrong. They actually got along well with Skyfire. Too well, if you asked him. They’d started courting him. Gently, somewhat subtly, using Vosian customs an Altihexan like Skyfire might not pick up on. The gifts were a little bit harder to explain away, but he’d done it, and would continue to until he couldn’t. The biggest saving grace of the situation was Skyfire’s abysmal social skills, ensuring he had no idea and everything could remain mostly the same. 

The new problem this posed, however, was that certain things he’d been staunchly ignoring before his trine forced themselves into the situation were becoming much harder to. The way certain smiles either warmed his spark or made it flutter. The way Starscream found himself craving more and more time with the mech. 

Until one orn he came to the horrible realization that Skyfire was an addiction, and he was hooked. The infuriating calmness and almost endless patience, the unconditional kindness, the unwavering stubbornness. They were opposites that balanced each other perfectly. Skyfire was the immovable object to Starscream’s unstoppable force, and Starscream would feel lost without him.

They were in class when the realization hit Starscream. 

As per usual they were sitting in the back where Skyfire wouldn’t be blocking anyone’s view, close enough their fields overlapped. Starscream dropped his stylus in shock and pulled his field in tight. Though he didn’t think he did so quick enough as Skyfire’s gaze snapped to him.

His mind was in a fog and he had no idea what his excuse was as he fled the lecture hall. He flew to his dorm room and then in through an open window, heedless of campus rules. It was the one place in this pit forsaken city he felt even remotely safe, and even then only because of the sheer amount of traps and fail-safes he’d installed on their door set to go off on anyone that wasn’t one of them. He had originally planned on telling Skyfire about them, but at this point he doubted that was going to happen.

Starscream found himself faltering though. It wasn’t exactly distancing himself from the mech when the room he retreated to was permeated with him. There weren’t even really sides to it anymore. 

It had started with Skyfire asking to set some of his indoor crystals on Starscream’s side. A simple thing that made sense for them to get the best light. Then it moved to datapads, projects, trinkets that spilled from one side to the other because the room just looked nicer like that. 

Primus, when had they shoved the berths together? He was sure it had initially been for logical reasons, but fraggit, they lived like a couple.

When had this happened? How had this happened? It hadn’t even been a full academic year.

Starscream just about jumped out of his plating when the door burst open.

“Are you ok?” Skyfire asked. All concern and kindness and fragging pit he was the one thing in life Starscream did not deserve. Mr. Perfect Attendance had left the class early to check on him.

“I-” The words stuck in his vocalizer. How could he possibly tell Skyfire that he had just realized he loved the mech.

Skyfire dropped down in front of him, concern shining in his optics. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you realize we live like a couple?”

Skyfire leaned back, optics darting around the room in surprise. “No.” He answered, a wry smile coming over his face. “I didn’t.”

“I-” He couldn’t say I love you. “I suppose it only makes sense if we’re going to live like one, we might as well call ourselves one.”

Skyfire looked blindsided. “I thought you didn’t want strings to dictate your fate.”

Starscream looked down at the red thread in thought. “Avoiding a relationship because it exists would be another method of allowing it to dictate my fate.”

The smile Skyfire gave Starscream made his spark feel like it was melting to goo. 

...That couldn’t be healthy.

Regardless, Starscream didn’t resist when Skyfire tentatively reached out to hold his hand. Starscream wasn’t much for touch, but Skyfire was and Starscream felt he could give the mech this. He steadfastly ignored the way his face felt like it was on fire.

“I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> There are several other platonic and romantic pairings I've been thinking about for this au, but we'll see if they actually get written. For now I hope you enjoyed this piece of self indulgence.


End file.
